Star Trot

Chapters

Chapter 1 - The Launch
Chapter 3 - Hostile Action
Chapter 4 - Boarding Parties
Chapter 5 - When Good Mares go to War
Chapter 2 - Encounter at Derppoint

Chapter 1 - The Launch

Star Trot

Cue this as intro music.

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Equestallation, on its mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and ponivillations, to boldly go where no pony has gone before.”

Chapter 1 - The Launch

Equestria, Canterlot Shipyards,

Stardate 64428, 0800 Hours, Local Time.

Captain Twilight Sparkle was trotting through the Canterlot Shipyards, looking for admiral Celestia, wearing her grey uniform with red edges(All uniforms were like that: Red edges for Command, yellow for operations, engineering and security and green edges for medical and science. On these edges were pips indicating ranks: One empty pip was cadet, a full one ensign, one full and one empty for Lieutenant Junior Grade, and that went up until captain.)

She was supposed to be meeting the admiral about her new command: The PSS Equestallation, PCC 1701, crewed by a minimum of 750 ponies, and a maximum of 4000. The unicorn’s mouth fell open as she walked past a window: Behind it she saw the majestic ship. It was larger than she imagined, but then again, the ship could carry 4000 ponies. It was around 2500 metres long, 400 metres wide and 120 metres high.

“Twilight!” a familiar voice cheerfully said behind her. “It’s good to see you again!”

“Admiral Celestia, likewise!” Twilight replied, bowing a little. Even though she and the admiral were good friends, she still had the habit of bowing and calling her Admiral(and princess sometimes, but Celestia her royal duties were mostly forgotten since the discovery of space travel. She had mostly served as the admiral of the Equestrian Federation)

“It’s just Celestia, or 'Tia for you.” The other replied. “So, you have arrived. That is your new ship, in case you hadn’t noticed yet, but I think you have.” She then said, pointing a hoof at the vessel outside the window. “The PSS Equestallation, new flagship of the Equestrian Federation of Ponies, with you as captain.”

Twilight couldn’t help but show a little pride. She had only been a captain for a year, and now she was captain of the Federation’s flagship already! Then, with a more serious tone than before, she asked “Who will be my XO?”

“Commander Rainbow Dash.” Celestia answered, “A very… energetic individual. One of the fastest Pegasi I’ve ever seen. Your entire crew is quite… let’s keep it at… energetic.”

“Commander Dash?” Twilight replied, “I heard that she could have flown with the Wonderbolts, but chose to go to the federation instead.”

“That is indeed true. As for the rest of your crew… Your chief engineer is Lieutenant Applejack, chief medical officer Lieutenant Commander Fluttershy, chief counsellor Ensign Pinkie Pie, chief of ops Ensign Rarity, and as your chief of security the rather small dragon Cadet Spike. He pilots the ship as well.”

The last caught Twilight her attention. “A dragon? On a starship? How does that fit?!”

“He’s a baby dragon.” Celestia simply replied, as if it was a normal thing to have a baby dragon as an officer on a starship.

Twilight raised an eyebrow, but didn’t continue on the matter: She trusted the Admiral, and so she trusted the Admiral her judgement as well. “When do I get to meet them?”

“You can board the ship within 15 minutes, and meet them on board. You take off in 4 hours.” Celestia replied with a cheerful tone.

Deck 5, Airlock, PSS Equestallation,

Docked at Canterlot Shipyards, Equestria,

Stardate 64428, 0930 Hours, Shipboard Time.

As captain Sparkle was walking out of the airlock Equestallation’s airlock, a pink, cheerful pony in a green edged uniform bounced past her. Then, the pony bounced back, and looked at Twilight.

“Hello, captain!” The pink pony cheerfully said, “I’m Ensign Pie, or Pinkie Pie, or Pinkie, or Ensign Pinkie, or counsellor Pie, or counsellor pinkie, or counsellor Pinkie Pie!”

Twilight, overwhelmed by the rather hyper introduction, figured this must be her counsellor. Still a bit flabbergasted, she said “Uh, nice to meet you, Ensign Pinkie Pie.”

“Oh, it’s just Pinkie! Everypony calls me Pinkie. Anyway, I bet you must be veeeeery busy with your captainy schedule, so I’ll be going!” Pinkie replied. But instead of going, she continued with: “Oh, have you met Commander Dash yet? Ooooh right, I bet you haven’t as you just came out of the airlock, how SILLY of me! And it will probably take you a while to find her, because the ship is HUUUUGE! Did you know that yet?, I bet you d-“

“Ensign…” Twilight interrupted the pink pony, raising a hoof. “I need to get a move on.’

“OOOH, right!” Pinkie said, “See you later, then!” and she bounced on towards her destination, waving at the captain.

After staring at where to the pink pony, Pinkie, had left, Twilight figured that she might as well meet her XO next, still a bit overwhelmed by the sudden introduction and the shower of words the Ensign had given her. Then, she commanded the computer: “Computer, locate Commander Dash”. The voice commands for the computer were useful, but a bit embarrassing at first, especially in crowds. It was as if you were talking to yourself.

“Commander Dash is in the Pegasus Flying Range, located on deck 7” the computer replied in its stale voice.

Twilight nearly replied “Thank you”, but got a hold of herself just in time. She had heard that the ship had a Pegasus Flying Range… A giant hall specifically designed for Pegasi to fly around. The rumours were that the holographic system there even supported clouds so the Pegasi could simulate weather. Most ships couldn’t fit such a thing, but as this was a flagship it was fitted with all the luxuries.

As Twilight trotted towards an elevator, she looked around the corridor, becoming more aware of her surroundings. This corridor belonged to the “Luxurious” part of the ship: It was a wide corridor with a soft yellow colour. Even though it was pleasant to walk in, it was deserted at this time. Everypony was probably too busy to be in the areas where all the crew facilities were. She entered the elevator she had been walking towards, and commanded “Deck 7, Pegasus Flying Range.”.

The elevator took off with a fast pace. These elevators could, if it were for an emergency, take you as far as 2 kilometres in 30 seconds! And they went both horizontal and vertical! No more stairways or maintenance shafts for her. Unless they had a power failure, of course.

The elevator came to a stop, and the doors slid open. She walked through the yet again deserted corridor, and took the first door to her right, labelled “Pegasus Flying Range”

As she stepped inside, her mouth fell open once again. It was an enormous room, with holo-projectors so good that she could actually smell the grass she was standing on, and the clouds above her head seemed real.

The place was more or less empty: There was only one Pegasus flying around. The Pegasus was blue, with manes that had all the colours of the rainbow, was flying very fast and was wearing a red-edged uniform, just like Twilight herself. When Twilight came in, the Pegasus descended to see who had entered. At the moment she saw that it was her commanding officer, she made a few loops and landed in front of Twilight’s feet.

“Good day to you, captain Sparkle! I’m Commander Rainbow Dash” She said, nearly as cheerful as Pinkie. As she saluted, she said “Nice to meet you, and what can I do for you?” and offered her hoof.

“Nice to meet you too” Twilight said, and she shook the Pegasus’s hoof, glad that she could actually talk to this member of her senior staff. “I was just meeting the rest of my crewmembers and touring the ship, so nothing in specific right now.”

“Oh, can I come with you?” Dash asked, adding “I have nothing better to do at the moment anyway.”

“Uhm, sure, why not?” Twilight replied, and they left the room.

As they were walking through the corridor, Twilight asked “So commander, have you met the rest of the senior staff yet?”

“Yeah, I’ve transferred here together with most of them. We all had our previous posting together: The only one I haven’t met yet is that Cadet Spike.” Rainbow replied. “He’s a dragon, isn’t he?”

“Indeed, he is a baby dragon.” Twilight answered, as they walked into the elevator. “Deck 11, main engineering” She then commanded, and the elevator moved.

Rainbow was silent for a moment, and then asked, “How did a baby dragon get to serve on a flagship, anyways? Isn’t he a bit too… young to serve on a Federation ship?”

“I have no idea, but I believe that the admiral has faith in him, and if she has, so do I.” Twilight replied.

Rainbow accepted that explanation with a simple “If you say so.”. She did glance at the captain with a bit of doubt, but when her eyes met Twilight’s and she saw only certainty, she decided that she would trust the Admiral her judgement. She did consider making a sarcastic remark at this point to break the silence, but it wouldn’t be too smart to insult her captain on her first day. It would be better to wait for at least a week. And so her thoughts went on as the elevator continued on its path.

Deck 11, Corridor outside of Main Engineering, PSS Equestallation,

Docked at Canterlot Shipyards, Equestria,

Stardate 64428, 0930 Hours, Shipboard Time.

The elevator arrived, and the within it silence was broken as the doors slid open. Unlike the deserted corridors on decks 5 and 7, deck 11(at least, this part of deck 11) was full of ponies. Everypony was either talking louldly, galloping or busy with preparing the ship’s systems for launch. In contrast with the luxurious corridors on the aforementioned decks, these corridors were much smaller, hexagon-based tunnels with dark grey floors and a lighter grey walls and ceilings. Both Twilight and Rainbow made their way towards the double doors labelled “Main Engineering”. When the doors slid open, the bulk of the engine room was revealed to be behind it.

There were computer panels on the walls, and in the middle of the large room stood the FTL engine core. It was a brand new design: A bubble engine. It was a very tall core, clearly going up 2 more decks, as well as going down 2 more. Main engineering was positioned exactly at the middle of the core, with a class floor and ceiling, looking both up and down at the other levels of the hall. There were small elevators positioned in the corners of the hall that allowed for quick travel between engineering levels.

On the subject of the engine core: previous FTL engine designs required a lot of fuel and worked on more of a slingshot system. The engine would basically give out a giant burst of propulsion throwing the ship it was equipped on into light speed.

Now the ponies at the federation’s R&D department had come up with a much better design: This made a bubble around the ship, allowing it to travel much faster at the expense of less fuel, and they could actually turn while travelling. The bubble thing was complicated, and it took around a year to completely learn how it worked for an average pony.

While Twilight and Rainbow were admiring the core, an orange earth pony approached them. She had two pips on her yellow-grey uniform, indicating she was lieutenant.

“Howdy there, cap’n! G’day Dash” The pony said cheerfully. “I’m Applejack, lieutenant Applejack, your chief engineer!”. Just as Commander Dash did in her introduction, Applejack offered her hoof to the captain.

“Nice to meet you, lieutenant.” Twilight replied, not really sure what to think of her crew so far. Sure, they were friendly, but they were also rather… Eccentric. Not really her kind of types, but she would have to get used to it. “So… how are the preparations for launch going?”

“Mighty fine, but I kinda think that we’re launchin ‘er – the ship – a bit too soon. Not all systems are 100% dandy yet.” Applejack replied, with a bit of a worried tone. Then, a grey Pegasus behind twilight caught her attention. “Buck, Derpy, that plug ain’t supposed to go in there!” she warned, and ran off to help the grey Pegasus, saying “s’cuse me” to the captain and Rainbow.

“So, Derpy transferred as well…” Rainbow said with a tone that was a mix between amusement and fear. “I can’t see how this could possibly go wrong…”

“Excuse me?” Twilight said, rather shocked that her XO was talking like that about a crewmember.

“She’s a bit… clumsy…” Dash replied. “Her heart’s in the right place though. I meant no disrespect towards her.” She added upon seeing her captain’s shocked look with a little bit of shame in her voice. It was a bad habit of her to be insensitive things like that.

“Right.” Twilight said, deciding she would forget about this discussion as she turned her back on the core. “Let’s go to sickbay, I’d like to meet my chief medical officer.”

“Okay, wait for me!” Rainbow replied, back to her usual cheerful voice.

Deck 4, Corridor outside of Sickbay, PSS Equestallation,

Docked at Canterlot Shipyards, Equestria,

Stardate 64428, 0950 Hours, Shipboard Time, Stardate 6

Twilight and Rainbow stepped out of the elevator yet again, to find themselves in the more luxurious yellow corridor variant. This deck was a bit more crowded than the previous ones, as part of the junior crew’s quarters were here, but it wasn’t as crowded as it would usually be: Everypony was still preparing for the launch.

They slowly trotted towards the Sickbay doors, and stepped inside. It was quite a large room; Not as large as the Pegasus flying range or main engineering, but it was still of considerable size. Around 22 beds were positioned against the walls the left and right walls(11 each), all with a life support monitoring system panels above them, and on the far side of the room there stood 3 operating tables.

A yellow Pegasus with pink manes wearing a green-edged uniform was gently flying through the room, humming a tune whilst putting her equipment in their designated shelves and closets.

When Twilight and Rainbow entered they startled the Pegasus. She nearly dropped the tools she was carrying and let out a soft squeak.

“Oh, I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to startle you!” Twilight quickly said, surprised by the Pegasus’s rather scared reaction. “I was just touring the ship, getting to know the crew. I’m Captain Twilight Sparkle,” She then added, offering her hoof(this would be her third hoofshake of the day.).

“Uhm, I’m Lieutenant Commander Fluttershy…” The yellow Pegasus answered softly, cautiously accepting the Captain’s hoof.

Just as Twilight was about to say something, the doors of sickbay slid open again. To Twilight her surprise, a baby dragon in a Federation uniform(Red edged) entered. He had one hollow pip on his uniform, indicating he was a cadet.

Twilight greeted the dragon by saying “Hello there, cadet!” with a friendly tone.

The dragon was slightly surprised to see both his XO, CO and doctor in the same room, but quickly recovered from his surprise. “Hello captain Sparkle, nice to meet you! And you too, commander, and you too, lieutenant commander. I’m Cadet Spike, chief of security and flight officer. As far as you can call a cadet an officer.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, cadet.” Twilight said, looking at the tiny dragon. There were two thoughts going to her head. The first was something among the lines of “How will he reach his controls, let alone pilot the ship?”, and the second one “Aw, a baby dragon… How adorable!”

He then shifted his attention towards Fluttershy, who was clearly fascinated by the entrance of the ship’s smallest crewmember. “I came to deliver my medical files doc. The federation doesn’t have them yet.”

“Oh, uhm, alright. You can put them over there.” Fluttershy replied, pointing her hoof at the nearest medical bed, still fascinated by the dragon.

After a short silence, Twilight said “Well, it’s been nice meeting you all, but I should really go meet my chief of Operations.”, and she then looked at Rainbow to see if she was coming with her again.

Rainbow saw Twilight’s gaze and said “I think I’ll stay here for now. I’ll see you on the bridge in a few hours, captain.”

“Me too, captain.” Spike added to Rainbow her sentence, not sure if the captain wanted him to come with her. The little dragon seemed not to mind all the attention. Actually, he seemed to like it above all else.

“Alright, I suppose that we will meet again later.” Twilight said, and she left sickbay.

Deck 1, Main Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

Docked at Canterlot Shipyards, Equestria,

Stardate 64428, 1010 Hours, Shipboard Time.

After quickly consulting the computer, Twilight found out that her chief of ops, Ensign Rarity, was on the main bridge. She had yet again walked into the elevator and went to the main bridge. This was something she wanted to see anyhow: It was where she would usually be for the next couple of years.

When the elevator arrived, the doors slid open, yet again. Before her was exactly what she had imagined a command centre of a flagship to be. The back half of the room was slightly elevated, with a workstation on the edge of the elevation. On the back of the room were multiple smaller workstations, all with different purposes. There were both solid panels on the walls as holographic panels floating around, their colours in contrast with the white and grey walls. In the middle of the room – where the elevation ended – were two chairs. The Captain’s chair and the commander’s chair. Behind and above that was the Ops station, and in front of it was Security/Navigation. How the little dragon was going to manage both things at once wasn’t clear to Twilight, but she had faith in the admiral and the dragon. And, at last, in front of Navigation, there was the main viewscreen.

There were three ponies on the bridge. The one who stood out the most was a bat-like pony, working on a security terminal in a corner, wearing a yellow-edged uniform. The bat-like ponies, or the Chiropterans as they called themselves were the first other species the Equestrian ponies made contact with. The Chiropterans weren’t a very trusting race, so not many of them served in the Equestrian Federation, but Twilight had heard that this one on the bridge, “Darkie Wings”, was quite friendly(Although some ponies described her as “Plain Creepy”).

At the Ops station stood a brightly white unicorn with a purple mane, complaining about her yellow-edged uniform to her colleague(who was the third person on the bridge). “Oh, I don’t see how they COULD pass this as acceptable. I mean, look at it! Whatever is this line doing HERE?! It is simply Unstylish! My word, the designer clearly has NO sense of fashion at all."

She broke off her flood of complaints as she saw the captain walk in. “Oh, good day madam.” She gracefully said with a small bow, surprised of her commanding officer’s sudden appearance(and slightly ashamed for complaining about the fleet’s dress code) “Fabulous to meet you. I am Ensign Rarity, chief of Operations”

Twilight had to force herself not to smirk. Seeing the mare complain about the uniforms, then seeing her being shocked and trying to recover from that shocked looked hilarious from her point of view. “Likewise.” She said, nodding towards Rarity her colleague, adding “Is everything going well up here?”

“Yes, everything is going as planned so far. My compliments to the one who came up with the release schedule.” Rarity replied. Even though she wasn’t impressed by the Fleet’s fashion designer, she clearly was by the one who came up with the schedules, as she just said.

By chance, the pony who organised the launch and came up with the launch schedules was Twilight, but she didn’t want to brag, so she simply said “I’ll relay that to the organiser. And now I’ll let you get back to your work. I will be in my office.”, and she walked towards the doors that were labelled “Captain’s Office”, nodding to Darkie Wings on her way.

The office was mostly what she expected: Not too large, but larger than an average office. There were two couches positioned against the north wall(as far as you had a “North” on a spaceship), and above them were windows that took up the rest of the wall. Nearly directly in front of her stood a sizable desk with a terminal on it. There was a comfortable office chair behind it, and several lamps were embedded into the ceiling.

Twilight sat down and got to work, looking over a couple of reports before the launch.

Listen To I Am The Doctor from the Doctor Who soundtrack.

Deck 1, Main Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

Docked at Canterlot Shipyards, Equestria,

Stardate 64428, 1200 Hours, Shipboard Time.

Nearly two hours had passed, and now the time had come to see if the magnificent flagship actually worked. Twilight, Rainbow, Spike and Rarity had all taken their positions on the bridge. A communications link was open to Engineering and Sickbay so the rest of the senior staff could speak with the ponies on the bridge during the launch.

“All departments, report.” Twilight commanded, both to her officers on the bridge and through the intercom. This was more of a ceremony than anything else: All systems were already checked and operational, it was just tradition to have all departments ready.

“Engineerin’ standing by!” Sounded through the commlink from Applejack, with a tinge of both excitement and nervousness in her voice.

“M-medical, standing by.” Was then said, again from the commlink, but this time it was Fluttershy. It was if she could barely get the words out of her mouth: The Pegasus was clearly scared to go into space, whilst behind her Pinkie Pie could be heard bouncing around, who sounded cheerful and excited.

“Security and Flight, standing by.” Spike said from the front of the bridge, turning his chair backwards to the Captain.

“Operations, standing by.” Rarity said from behind the captain with a proud tone. “And with that, all departments, standing by.”

“Good” Twilight said with a satisfied and just as excited tone. “Cadet Spike, full power to thrusters and take us into orbit.”

“Yes captain!” The young dragon replied, turning his chair back to his terminal. “Full power to levitational thrusters” he repeated, and he pressed a few of his buttons. Upon that, the ship began to move as the thrusters fired.

Slowly the large vessel raised from its docking clamps, leaving behind large amounts of smoke. The ship took off horizontally at first, but then Spike slightly lowered the power of the aft levitational thrusters. The ship shifted until it hung there diagonally, with the gravity plating struggling to compensate as they were still within the Equestrian atmosphere: Ever pony inside the ship had to brace themselves to make sure not to fall over.

Then, Spike fired the aft thrusters. These were much more powerful than the levitational ones, and the ship was launched out of the atmosphere and into Equestrian orbit.

Upon reaching orbit, he turned on the automatic stabilization thrusters, and turned his chair around with a proud look on his face. He wanted to say “I hope that after that you’re convinced to serve me gemstones at dinner!”, but resisted.

“Well done, cadet!” Twilight said, impressed by the dragon’s flying skills.

Then, there was a beep that Twilight knew to be the communication system, and Rarity said “We are being hailed by Admiral Celestia.”

“Put her on the main viewscreen, please.” Twilight commanded.

The Admiral appeared on the viewscreen. She had a very content look on her face, and said “Well done, everypony. You have successfully launched!”. Then, towards Twilight she said “You know what you are supposed to do captain. Good luck with your test flight!”, and she ended the communication.

Around two seconds after the communication had ended, Twilight said “Alright. We are supposed to make our test flight to Wheat Space Ten, where we will receive our first mission.”. Then she commanded through the still open commlink to Engineering “Lieutenant Applejack, activate the engine core and prepare for FTL travel.”

“Yes ma’am!” Applejack replied to the Captain, and turned to her staff. “You heard the cap’n, let’s buck this lady into jumpspace!” She said, after which you could hear cheers. Both from the commlink to engineering and the Bridge. Even in Sickbay there were some cheers(A huge one from Pinkie Pie, and a soft “yay” from Fluttershy.).

There was a soft humming sound as the main engine core was activated. Down in engineering, the core lit up like a Christmas tree, glowing a sharp blue light.

“Cadet Spike…” Twilight said with a smile, “FTL Cruising speed, headed towards Wheat Space Ten.”

“Course laid in” Was Spike his simple answer. More was not required.

Twilight took a deep breath. “Engage.”

Chapter 3 - Hostile Action

Chapter 3: Hostile Action

Listen to The Normandy Attacked.

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0107 Hours, Shipboard Time.

“RAISE SHIELDS, FULL ALERT!” Twilight shouted on the impact of alien torpedo.

“Raising shields, captain.” Cadet Spike answered, trying to keep calm as the alarm that belonged to full alert started going off(A long beep every few seconds.).

Everywhere on the ship the lights had dimmed upon the alert starting. Red lights flashed on and off in sync with the alarms, and computer panels had darkened a bit.

“Status report!” Twilight commanded Rarity, who had braced herself to her work station when the ship took the hit, and was still recovering from the shock.

After a second Rarity went through all the damage reports that had come in, and she reported “Hull breaches on decks five through nine. Eighteen wounded and still counting.”

Before Twilight had time to say anything, Rainbow Dash shouted something.

“Captain, they’re firing again!” was the commander’s feverish message, and indeed, they could see another torpedo incoming.

“Evasive mano-“ Twilight started, but the torpedo hit before she could finish.

This time the damage was mostly deflected by the shields, but there was still a notable shake and some panels were sure to come loose due to the hits.

“Shields down to eighty-five percent” Spike reported when the brief shake was over.

“Captain, I suggest we return fire or get out of here!” Rainbow recommended to the captain, her face lit up by the red alarm lights every two second.

“No. Evasive manoeuvres, get us away from their nose cone.” Twilight answered strictly. She wasn’t about to fire on aliens they hadn’t had the slightest of contact with: This could all be some misunderstanding.

As Spike brought the ship about so they wouldn’t be straight in front of the enemy ship anymore, yet another projectile was fired. Compared to the speed and manoeuvrability of the small warheads, the Equestallation was much too slow and unable to dodge it. When it hit, the cadet reported “Shields down to seventy percent!”

Two other hits landed on them, Spike reported the shield integrity yet again. “Shields at sixty-no, fifty percent!”

“CAPTAIN SPARKLE!” Rainbow shouted, shocked and annoyed by her captain’s irrational behaviour. Sure, she could understand that Twilight didn’t want to shoot at a new alien ship, but the crew was in danger here, and it didn’t look like the aliens were the diplomatic types.

“Fine. Fire sparklers, target their shield and weapon systems. Bring us about and prepare for FTL travel.” Twilight admitted and commanded, finally realising that they couldn’t contact the aliens at this time.

Spike began both navigating the ship to point away from the aliens so they could escape, and returning fire. If it wasn’t such a stressful situation, it would have been fascinating to see the young dragon’s claws fly over the his command terminals.

When the ship started moving, it also fired a few bursts of directed energy through its Sparkler banks. The giant lasers hit the enemy at their cannons and-

“Fired sparklers at full power, no damage.” Spike reported. Their attack had been fruitless.

“Fire 3 torpedoes.” Twilight commanded, and then commanded over the intercom, “Applejack, prepare the engines for FTL speed.”

“Aye cap’n” Applejack shouted from engineering. Down there everything was hectic: repair crews were on their way to the hull breaches, and on top of that they had to power up the drive core again.

The three torpedoes were fired, all of which hit supposedly strategic targets. Spike took a look at their attack’s result, and then said “If these readings are correct, we might have lowered their shield integrity by one percent.”

Twilight was about to shout that they should to FTL speed as soon as it was possible, but then the aliens fired again.

It seemed like positioning themselves at the side of the ship again wasn’t such a smart idea; the majority of the cannons were there. A volley of five torpedoes was fired. When they started hitting the ship, the shaking was enough to make an engineer who was running over the bridge fall.

After the shaking was over, Spike shouted “SHIELDS DOWN!”.

This was enough for Twilight to know that they would need to get out of here, or ponies would start dying. “Can we go to FTL yet?”

“No captain, I need ten more seconds!” Applejack replied over the intercom, nearly panicking due to the damage that had been dealt to the shields.

Immediately after the words had left AJ’s mouth, an alarm went off on Rarity’s console. “Oh dear…” was the only thing she could say, but everypony on the bridge could see what it was about.

The aliens were firing three more torpedoes, all at two second intervals. The first one hit close to the engines, the second one at living quarters and the third one behind the bridge.

Twilight was thrown out of her chair, hitting the ground head first. For a moment, everything was a little blurry for her, but after five seconds or so, she could see the damage that had been done.

Sparks came from severed power wires that hung from the ceiling, some wall panels had come loose and there was a fire next to the navigation consoles.

Behind Twilight, Rainbow(who had managed to remain in her chair) shouted “Applejack, I need that FTL drive NOW”

“Sorry Commander, that torpedo took out them drive coils. We need at least an hour to get ‘em fixed, if not more!” Applejack feverishly replied from engineering.

After hearing this, Twilight shook her head and got up, recovering from the blast. She returned to her chair and said “Spike, try to shoot at any more torpedoes they fire at us. If you manage to find a weak spot, hit it at once. In the meantime, get us as far away from the alien ship as we can. Engineering, get the shields and FTL engines back online. Everything else is a secondary priority excluding main power and life support. Rainbow, get down to engineering and help with any repairs: They need all the help they can get. Sickbay, prepare for more casualties. Rarity, send out a distress call to all nearby Equestrian ships and let’s hope someone picks it up. I also want a damage report every time we get hit.”. This was the reason she was a captain: In case of emergencies, REAL emergencies, she could remain calm and easily command a ship full of wounded ponies.

Everypony on the bridge stared at the captain for a few seconds, and then all confirmed their orders. Rainbow left for engineering, Spike called up a more precise targeting interface so he could hit projectiles and Rarity got to work on a distress signal and damage reports.

Deck 11, Main Engineering, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0120, Shipboard Time.

Engineering was a mess when Rainbow entered. Steam came from a multitude of pipes, some other pipes had fell onto the floor(wounding several ponies) and it was clear that everyone was focused on the repairs. Nothing else mattered right now.

“Dash!” was shouted from behind a console at the other side of the room. It was Applejack, as was to be expected. She seemed to be trying to fix something at the engine core whilst also trying to do something at a panel. “I could really use some darned help over here!”

The rainbow pegasus galloped over, and asked “What d’ya need me to do, Lieutenant?”

“Just grab somethin’ that could be used to weld, anything, and weld them pipes over there!” Applejack said, and she pointed at a few leaking pipes near the engine cores. “They’re leakin’ coolant, and if that continues we could have us a core overload.”

“Right, on it.” Rainbow replied as she began searching for anything to mend the broken pipes. Her eye fell on a hyperspanner; that would have to do. She picked it up with her mouth and flew over the leaking pipes. As the commander began welding, she noticed that things were looking worse than they had thought. The coolant leak was only the beginning of the damage: Multiple key power lines to the core were severed, but others were working on that. The most worrying thing was damage to the fuel intake, but Applejack was working on that herself, so that was also being worked on.

Snapping out of it and going back to her work, Rainbow focused on the coolant leak. It wasn’t hard to mend a simple coolant leak, she just had to make sure that she didn’t get any coolant on her. ‘That stuff is cold’ she thought to herself. ‘And not just normal cold, at least 25% colder than standard coolant. 25%!’

Not much later, she was done with the pipes. “Right, done over here!” she shouted over to the lieutenant. “Need help with those fuel lines?”

“Nope, rather have people from within’ the engineering department handle this. No offense, but can you work on those power lines instead?” The lieutenant replied, pointing at the severed power lines near a maintenance catwalk around the core.

“Sure, I’ll get on it.” Rainbow answered, and she flew over to the engineers working on the power lines. Just as she landed and was about to get to work, there was another hit. She tumbled down from the catwalk. Opening her wings just in time, the pegasus managed to land safely. “WHOA!”

With the hit, all the lights except for the emergency lights went out.

“What in tarnation…” Applejack muttered, as Rainbow tapped her badge(which also happened to be a communicator) and said “Rainbow Dash to the bridge. What was that? I thought Cadet Spike was shooting any other projectiles?”

“Yeah, sorry about that!” could be heard from Spike, who sounded stressed out as he shouted across the bridge. Then came a response from Twilight. “One of them got through. We lost all main power, so we’ve only got emergency lighting, internal sensors, life support and communication… some of the main elevators are still online too.”

“Well, this can’t get any wors-“ Applejack attempted, but was interrupted by something suddenly illuminating a wall. It was one of the aliens materialising on the ship.

“Forget I said anythin’…”

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0125, Shipboard Time.

The main bridge wasn’t in any less chaos than Engineering. Multiple engineers had arrived to repair the damage that had been done, all of them trotting around, but their progress was going slow. The fire next to the navigation console had been put out, but that hadn’t fixed things: Multiple wires and subsystems that should be hidden behind panels were visible and clearly broken due to the heat that was there moments earlier.

Twilight had been talking to Rarity about other ways of defense when the torpedo that took out main power had it. After the short communication with Engineering, they didn’t have time to resume their conversation because there came yet another message.

The words “Intruder Alert!” could be heard over the entire ship in the voice of Applejack. “We got ourselves an alien in Engineerin’, materialised right ‘n front of us.”

Twilight got up from her chair and immediately began asking questions over the communication lines: “What does it look like? Is it armed? What is it doing? Does it have l-“

She was interrupted by Rainbow who apparently had enough of the captain’s rant and got close enough to Applejack to speak through the same commlink. “Captain!” She just said. It was just one word, but it was enough to snap Twilight out of it.

“Right, right… Well? What does it look like?” Twilight replied and asked with genuine interest and a tad of annoyance. This had been the second time in the past thirty minutes the Commander had spoken to her in a rather rude way… When this was all over, she would have to confront her about that.

“I haven’t seen anything like it, Cap’n... It’s got four legs like us, but it’s skin’s all charred and grimy, a bit like gravel, I s’pose.” Applejack replied. “So far it’s just standin’ there, starin’ at us, bu-wait, t’is moving now.”

“Where is it going Lieutenant? What is it doing?” Twilight barked, annoyed that she couldn’t see what was happening on her own ship, but also excited because a brand new life form was aboard their ship.

“T’is headin’ towards an information console.” Applejack answered. A few seconds passed, and then AJ added “It appears to be doin’ something with a console, not sure what. We have security teams here cap’n, armed and ready. Should they open fire?”

“Negative, it might be trying to learn.” Twilight replied, and turned towards Rarity. “Ensign, could you find out what it is accessing?”

“But of course, Captain” Rarity answered with her usual flair, but not without stress. She accessed the internal sensors, and began reading the readings out loud. “At the moment it’s downloading non-classified data like our home planet, star charts and those matters.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s okay, let it get what it wants. As I said, it’s trying to learn; maybe it can figure out that we’re not a threat to them.”

“Wait for a moment, Twilight… Now it’s attempting to access restricted files like shield frequencies, blueprints and weapon schematics.” Rarity said, tone shifting to wary.

“Okay, that’s not good…” Twilight mumbled. As a captain, one of her most important duties was making sure that the Equestrian Federation’s technology didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Reluctantly, she gave an order to Engineering. “Applejack, order the security teams to stun the alien. Only stun it, no more.”

“Got it, cap’n.” Applejack replied, and she could be heard talking to the security officers down in Engineering. “Y’all heard the lady, stun it.”

What happened next was slightly unnerving for the ponies on the bridge to hear: Weapons fire sounded from engineering, after which the alien growled angrily, apparently not getting stunned easily. Rarity raised a hoof to her mouth in shock, terrified by the noises of the angry alien downstairs.

“Cap’n, it ain’t goin’ down if we put sparklers on stun. Permission to turn the power up, the alien’s headin’ towards us.” Applejack said rather feverishly. ‘Said’ was an understatement, though: It was more of a mix between saying and shouting, which was understandable judging the situation of an assumingly hostile alien walking towards her.

This time, Twilight didn’t doubt her decision. The alien clearly didn’t have any good intentions, and it was time to put a stop to its actions. “Permission granted, Lieutenant. Just make sure you don’t kill it.”

There came no reply from Applejack, but Rainbow Dash could be heard saying something among the lines of ‘putting up the heat’. Soon after, the sound of lasers intensified, and then stopped completely. “Aright cap’n, we took it down.” Was reported by Applejack, and she quickly added “No casualties on our end.”.

“Very well, Lieutenant. Get it transported to Sickbay so Fluttershy can take a look at it and tell her I’ll be on my way down.” Twilight replied to Applejack, getting up from her chair and moving forward a bit. She then added “Tell the Commander to get down there as well.” before heading towards the elevator. As she stood inside it, the Captain quickly said “Ensign Rarity, you have the bridge.” just seconds before the doors closed.

Deck 4, Sickbay, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0150, Shipboard Time.

Rainbow Dash was moving through the corridors on Deck 4 at a brisk pace, headed towards Sickbay. The corridors were still dark due to the loss of powers, and every now and again a repair crew galloped past her. ‘This is bad…’ was one of the only thoughts going through her mind, and it was quite true. She had served in the federation for 3 years now, and never had a situation looked this grim. Sure, ships she was on had taken a few hits here and there, but this was whole new level of bad.

Rainbow Dash trotted into Sickbay to find a security team, some wounded ponies from the attack earlier, the (unconscious) alien and Twilight Sparkle already there in the company of Fluttershy. The alien had been teleported over there as it would be a hassle to carry it all the way up there, and it was lying on an operating table with Twilight and Fluttershy standing around it, the latter of them doing a few scans. Twilight had of course arrived earlier, as the Bridge was closer to Sickbay than Engineering.

“Ah, commander, you’re here. The Lieutenant Commander here was just finishing some scans on the alien.” Twilight said as Dash came through the doors, giving her a nod.

“Came as fast as I could, Captain!” Rainbow said as she snapped a quick salute before trotting over to the operating table the other two were standing at. “So ‘Shy, what have ya got?”

Fluttershy was just finishing her scans and quickly glanced over the results. “Well uhm… It’s hard to tell what’s what because the physiology is… different… from ours.” The shy pegasus muttered whilst looking from the alien, to Rainbow, to Twilight. “It appears to have some sort of armor which was protecting it from the sparkler beams. Even though it had that for protection, it suffered from minor internal bleeding… or uhm… I think it’s internal bleeding.”

“Could you clarify on that?” Twilight asked politely, studying the alien avidly. Even though it could have hurt her crew, she couldn’t prevent her scientist side taking over. “I mean, if you can’t be sure if it’s internal bleeding, it has to be completely different from us!”

“Well you see, it appears it’s organs and bones can be folded in any shape it wants… With that I mean it could become flat if it so desires, and slide underneath doors.” The pegasus looked over her results again before continuing. “This also means the creature’s veins are hard to differentiate… I can’t decide if this it’s just normal or if something is wrong with it.”

Twilight nodded animatedly. She was still looking at the alien with great interest, and had taken in every word Fluttershy said and was processing the information now. The possibility of the creature becoming flat was a completely new concept to her and the federation in general, as nothing like this had ever been seen before.

In a direct contrary with Twilight, Rainbow’s eyes had glazed over completely, and instead she was worrying about the many repairs. When it came to science, it would be an understatement if you would say her attention span was rather short.

Before any of them could say anything, the ship shook violently again accompanied with another loud crash. Most patients in sickbay had been sleeping before, but now multiple tumbled out of their beds, which of course cut their sleep short. Twilight tapped her comm badge and said “Bridge, damage report!”

An answer came from Rarity. “Another torpedo got through, and we got hull breaches in several non-essential storage areas, Captain.”

“Very well.” Twilight replied, and she turned towards Rainbow Dash. “We should come up with a plan of defence soon, we can’t continue taking hits like that.”

“Yeah, that might be a good idea, but it’s already certain that we can’t just break through their shields just like that.” Rainbow said, and she thought for a moment. Even though she wasn’t good at the theoretical stuff, she wasn’t bad at coming up with offense or defence plans. “How about we send a shuttle and give it covering fire, see if we can get it to dock somewhere?”

Twilight pondered about that offer for a minute or two. It was a very good idea in general; if a shuttle could dock and board the enemy vessel, they could either try diplomacy or turn off their shields from there. The downside was that a shuttle was fragile, and she wasn’t about to order some of her crew to go on a possible suicide run.

“That might not be a bad idea, Commander, but it’d be very risky…”

Before Rainbow could respond, they were interrupted again, this time by a sudden change of alarms. “Ugh, what NOW?!” Rainbow shouted in frustration. A second afterwards, she got her answer.

“Intruder alert on Decks 4, 5 and 12!”

Chapter 4 - Boarding Parties

Chapter 4 - Boarding Parties

Listen to Danger is Near to enhance the experience of reading the first chapter.

Deck 4, Corridor outside of Sickbay, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0205, Shipboard Time.

Silence had fallen over the dark corridors of the Equestallation, the only sounds being the alarm beeps at three second intervals, these echoing against the walls. Aside from medical staff and their patients, everypony had been evacuated to other decks.

“Intruder alert on Decks 4, 5 and 12!” Sounded through the announcement system, followed by a change in the alarm tones: Instead of beeping, there was now more of a whooping noise. Not long after, security teams mobilised on all of those decks, armed with sparklers and scanners to find and apprehend the intruders. All of them except for the unicorns were walking on their hind legs – a skill required for all Federation officers to be able to hold weaponry, since shooting a laser with the mouth lacks hygiene, subtlety and could be dangerous. Plus, it would be really hard to operate small buttons with their tongues… In the words of the ship’s chief of Operations, it would be “Irresponsible and quite frankly, unladylike.”

About 5 minutes later, the door to Sickbay opened with its usual whooshing sound and commander Rainbow Dash stepped out, carrying a hoofheld sparkler with a flashlight attached to it, shedding light into the dark corridor. She quickly and frantically looked over her surroundings, eyes darting over the corridor’s many wall panels. She looked to her left and then to her right, only to find out that everything was clear with nothing moving in sight. “The coast is clear, Captain.” She hissed over her shoulder with a hushed voice, relaxing the tiniest bit due to the lack of aliens.

Almost immediately after those words left Rainbow’s mouth, Twilight Sparkle came trotting out of the door with a sparkler in a saddle holster and magically levitated scanner next to her head. The red light flashes made her look the tiniest bit intimidating, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t impressed. After all, she was Rainbow Dash; The fastest pony in the Equestrian Federation who wasn’t scared of anything.

They had plundered Sickbay’s emergency cabinets after the intruder alert was sounded, retrieving the sparklers, a scanning device and belts to hold said equipment in case they needed their hooves(or horn) free. The scanner was set to only pick up the life signs of intruders matching the one in sickbay, in order to avoid accidentally shooting a crewmember or civilian.

Twilight looked at the scanning device, not seeing anything on its small display that would imply intruders being near. “This corridor is empty.” She whispered towards Rainbow Dash.

The Commander nodded sharply, and replied “Good, let’s go.” She motioned her hoof up the dark hallway, making clear that she wanted to go.

They started walking down the corridor, keeping a slow and cautious pace. Rainbow walked a bit clumsily, having some trouble balancing on her hind legs, but she managed. She nearly tripped a few times but always managed to recover quickly, hoping that Twilight didn’t notice.

At each intersection they paused for a moment, Twilight checking for life signs or traces of it, but so far they had picked up nothing.

Suddenly, the scanner made a few short beeps. Twilight quickly looked down at it, seeing a newly appeared red blip moving in their direction. “I think we got something… Fifty metres ahead.” She muttered. “It’s coming at us fast…”

The alien that the scanner had picked up came galloping towards them, illuminated spookily by the red flashes of emergency lighting. Rainbow Dash took aim and fired at the creature to no avail, again, and again. At each hit it growled angrily, looking at the two ponies in what can only be described as pure rage. It looked as if it was going to pounce, it jumped and- A flash, accompanied to the loud, rather high-pitched noise of a Cardapony handcannon. The alien fell to the ground, apparently knocked out. The source of the noise and flash(In other words, blast) was standing a few metres behind where the alien crashed down onto the floor. It was a grey-scaled Cardapony. Cardaponies were militaristic race who usually avoided Equestrians, and the Equestrian Federation in general. This one, however, was wearing the clothes of a tailor and judging by his badge he was a Federation Civilian.

“Now now, Commander. You should really be more careful, otherwise you might not survive this mission… Or you could just turn that sparkler up a few levels.” The Cardapony said, shaking his head and trotting over to the Captain and the Commander.

Rainbow glared at the figure angrily and Twilight said “Thank you, mister…”

“Radon Gaze, the ship’s manedresser.” The Cardapony replied casually.

“Thank you, mister Gaze, but wh-“

“Oh, just Radon, Madam. Plain, simple Radon.” Radon interrupted, smiling in an overly friendly and slightly unnerving way.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow, looking at the newcomer with some caution. “Riiight… Well… Mister Gaze, we need to get going. You should return to your quarters.”

“Oh, but I was hoping I might assist you in your search,” Radon said, keeping the creepy smile on his face. “As you just noticed, a third person might come in handy, and really, where is the fun in staying inside while all the excitement is out here?”

Twilight stared at the Cardapony for a few moments. On one side of her brain, little voices were screaming that it wasn’t a really good idea to take a civilian with them, and that there was actually a regulation saying that it wasn’t allowed unless required. On the other hoof however, the voices were saying that Radon was right, and that he might indeed come in handy.

Eventually she reluctantly nodded and said “Fine then. You may follow us for now.”

Meanwhile, in another area of Deck 4…

Darkii Wings had been patrolling deck 4 during the attacks on the Equestallation. Only so many ponies could man sparkler batteries, and patrolling was basically everything security officers could do when there was an emergency situation. She had only come into real action when enemy boarding parties had come aboard, and now she was quietly looking for the team she had been assigned to, in which she would search for the invaders.

She was actually quite optimistic towards her task. This wasn’t due to arrogance; quite the contrary, she didn’t think she would be able to handle a single alien hoof-to-hoof, and she wasn’t even sure if she could with a sparkler. No, this optimism was because, for the first time during this mission, the talents which made her choose for the security department when choosing her career came into use.

Chiropterans are creatures of the night; anyone meeting one would see that right away, sometimes them even being mistaken for Lunar ponies. Usually, this wasn’t useful at all, especially not when working with lots of others as they might be afraid of bats. But since the corridors were dark, she could easily see without a flashlight, keeping her position unknown to everyone.

“Unless the aliens have night vision as well…”

That thought made Darkii shudder slightly, but she shook her head and moved on, tightening her grip on the sparkler she was carrying. She walked in silence for a few minutes, slowly keeping balance on her hind hooves, until she suddenly heard hoofsteps a few metres ahead. She quickly ran around a corridor junction’s corner to hide, her breathing becoming erratic immediately. For this she scolded herself – she was trained to be calm in situations like this.

She calmed herself down a bit, not sure if the incoming people were crewmembers or not… Trembling slightly as the steps came closer and closer, she armed her sparkler and got ready to jump out of hiding…

Meanwhile, at the other three’s group…

Commander Rainbow Dash was leading on yet again, with Radon Gaze gently trotting behind her left side, and Captain Sparkle behind her on the right side. Rainbow stumbled as she almost tripped over her own hooves. She regained her posture quickly, leaning against a wall with a hoof for support for a moment. Just when Radon smirked and opened his mouth to make a cutting remark on Dash’s clumsy walking skills, a figure jumped out from behind a corner.

Rainbow instantly reacted by standing up straight, aiming her sparkler and shouting “Stay where you are!” Radon took aim as well while Twilight just took a step backwards, looking at her scanner in confusion; it didn’t display any enemy lifesigns.

Immediately after hearing Rainbow’s warning, Darkii Wings(who had been the one jumping) dropped her rifle and threw her hooves in the air. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaimed with both fear and apology, her eyes darting from pony to pony.

Upon seeing that the pony speaking was indeed on their side, Twilight walked up next to Rainbow Dash and put her hoof on the sparkler, forcing it down a bit(getting a glare from Dash). Right after that, she looked back at Darkii and asked with the friendliest tone she could manage “What are you doing here on your own, crewman?”

Rainbow spoke after the Captain. “Yeah, we could have shot you! Why were you so reckless?” After saying this, she got an annoyed look from Twilight who was clearly disagreeing with the Commander’s behaviour.

Darkii put herself down on all fours, relaxing a bit as the sparkler wasn’t aiming at her anymore. She still warily eyed Radon’s weapon for a moment, unsure of the Cardapony’s plans. After a second, though, she focused on Twilight and replied “I was looking for my team, Captain… I was on this deck when we were attacked, and I haven’t been able to find them.” Her voice crackled a bit, clearly still a bit startled.

“Which team were you on?” Rainbow asked, this trying to be a little bit more polite, her expression softened as well.

“Lambda Five, Ma’am.”

Twilight nodded. “Mhm, well you can stick with us until we meet them, then.”

Rainbow glared at Twilight’s suggestion, saying “But captain, we’re already with thre-“

This wasn’t exactly what Captain Sparkle wanted to hear… This was what, the third time Rainbow pulled something like this on her today? “Commander.” She replied, giving Dash a reprimanding look.

“Bu-“

Twilight’s look became a very, very disapproving glare. If Rainbow was going to say one more thing, she’d probably grab her sparkler and stun her.

“…Fine, let’s get moving.” The Commander replied, a bit anxious due to the look Twilight gave her. If looks could kill…

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0209, Shipboard Time.

There wasn’t much to do on the bridge for neither Cadet Spike or Ensign Rarity. Even though Spike could be searching for the aliens, it was more strategic for him to coordinate all the security squads using the comm system from the bridge. Most of the time there wasn’t anything to coordinate though; the squads were all ordered to report in every ten minutes or when they found something, and they weren’t finding anything. Besides that, he was also supposed to manoeuver the ship away from attacks, but for some reason the aliens hadn’t fired anything at them since the aliens boarded. Therefore, he was sitting back, relaxing for the first time in hours and looking up at Rarity every now and again.

Rarity was monitoring the sensors on rather faintly lit screens, tapping her hoof on a panel in boredom. The internal sensors were working at an absolute minimum due to damage in the attacks, and there wasn’t much on external besides background radiation and the big alien ship. She had seen a blip on the internal sensor’s display earlier, as if someone was communicating from inside the ship, but it was most likely a bug and not worth investigating. I

Spike eventually spoke up, first clearing his throat nervously to attract the Ensign’s attention. “So uh, Rarity… Are you doing anything tomorrow evening?”

“Tomorrow evening? Well, of course I am doing something. The ship is wrecked, and I would not be surprised if my entire quarters is an entire MESS! I will have to clean all of that up, and not the mention all the logs and information that needs to be analyzed. It is simply CRAMPED with assignments!” Rarity replied, mostly oblivious to Spike’s true intention.

The baby dragon facepalmed, and opened his mouth to speak just when Rarity continued.

“And besides that, I am in a great need of a hooficure and my coiffure is a total disaster! Certainly my beautiful appearance has been rattled to bits! I believe I even felt an eyelash breaking! And on top of THA-“ Rarity suddenly shut her mouth, and looked at Spike in a moment of a realization, this dawning on her face as well. “Aah, you were implying… Oh, but Spike, that is hardly appropriate! You are baby dragon after all, not to mention all the regulations an-“

This time Rarity stopped talking due to a bleep originating from one of her computer consoles and something lighting up. By the time she had looked down at it, though, it had already disappeared again. “Huh… That is certainly peculiar…” She muttered, but turned back to Spike a second afterwards.

“But as I was saying, there are also hordes of regulations, both official and unofficial to discourage such a thing! Of course it’s allowed, but the federation doesn’t appreciate it all that much either!” Rarity finished, looking down at Spike with a mix of compassion and confusion.

“A-alright…” Spike just replied, gulping sadly and turning back to his console. In the awkward silence that followed, he took note of the fact that multiple ponies on the bridge had been staring at him and Rarity for a moment, in either surprise or amusement. He blushed and pretended to be checking something on the navigation consoles to make it look like as if he was back to work again. Soon enough, the others on the bridge resumed their tasks as well.

He sat back a little, sighing in self-pity deeply but softly. If only he were a few years older and not on a spaceship… He’d had more chances with Rarity…

Like that he sat there for a minute or two, hands folded over his belly and staring at his computer consoles for any updates on the ship’s situation, sinking away into a daydream about how things could be.

Then suddenly, he was awoken from this daydream by a short, sharp and loud noise, signalling an emergency communication. He sat up and looked over his security terminals after he had realised that this sound didn’t originate from Rarity or her consoles but his own. Just as the transmission started playing automatically due to its importance, he saw on his terminal that it originated from Sickbay.

At first it seemed like it might be a false alarm, or at least, no-one was saying anything. Spike turned up the receiving volume and listened carefully, silence falling on the bridge. He heard soft, careful hoofsteps, the sound of a maintenance tube opening and closing and then BANG. The door to sickbay was being rammed.

Spike jumped slightly, startled by the sudden loud noise. BANG. It happened again. Then one more time, this time much, much louder and the doors could be heard being thrown out of their frames.

He immediately called up another comm line, this one to the Captain. “Captain Sparkle, we’ve got intruders in sickbay, as far as I know they just kicked the door.”

There was a moment of silence before Twilight(who was down on Deck 4) replied. “Understood Cadet, we’ll be on our way there. Notify another one of your security teams to meet us there.”

“Aye captain.” Spike said and he closed the transmission. He then opened yet another communications channel, this time to one of his squads and started giving them orders.

Deck 4, Corridor outside of Sickbay, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0215, Shipboard Time.

Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Radon Gaze and Darkii Wings were all galloping through Deck 4’s corridors, back to where the first two had come from: Main sickbay. Upon receiving the emergency transmission from Spike, they had immediately set off, worried for the life of Fluttershy and afraid of losing their alien captive.

They ran past the final corner and came to skidding halt at the sickbay doors. The three federation officers were doing well, but Radon, who hadn’t received the training the others had, was breathing rather heavily. “I… I should really exercise more often…” he mumbled exasperatedly in between his short breaths.

Rainbow motioned him to be quiet with one of her hooves while Twilight and Darkii(and soon after them, Rainbow and Radon) lined up next to the door. The other security team which Spike had called hadn’t arrived yet, but they didn’t have the time to wait.

Twilight whispered “Move in at the count of three. One… Two… THREE!”

All of them charged in at once, sparklers aimed in a sweeping movement to cover the entire room, only to find it empty, unless you counted the room’s equipment.

“What the hay...” Rainbow Dash mumbled in confusion… lowering her sparkler and clumsily walking around the room, checking behind corners and beds within her line of sight.

Darkii Wings looked around the room in confusing, asking “Where are the aliens?” quietly and warily, her sparkler still high and eyes darting around.

“Gone no-“ Twilight was halfway done with her reply when they heard sounds at the other side of the room. She and the others hastily turned to face the source of the noise – the half-open entrance hatch to a maintenance tube. “Show yourself!” she shouted.

There was a soft, slightly muffled squeak in response, and a terrified canary yellow pegasus stumbled out. “I’msorryIdidn’tdoanythingwrong!” Fluttershy said, covering her head with her hooves, shaking uncontrollably.

Everypony lowered their weaponry as soon in relief as they noticed that it was indeed Fluttershy who had disturbed them, and Twilight gently spoke. “Where are the aliens, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy laid on the floor shaking for a few more seconds before completely calming down and slowly getting up. “Uhm... They took our.. Prisoner and then teleported away again…” She gulped. “They didn’t look for me at all…”

“They were only here to recover their crewmember, then.” Twilight stated, looking back at Rainbow. “But now they’ve got him back, what will they do?”

Just then, the other security team that was assigned to go to sickbay stormed in, sparklers high until they saw the scene inside. The leader of the three asked “Is everything under control now, ma’am?”

“Yes it is. I do ask you to stay here to guard sickbay, though, as the aliens could come back for some reason.” Twilight replied before turning to Rainbow Dash. “Do you have any idea what they could do now?”

“I dunno Captain, I guess they’ll resume their attacks…” Rainbow said. “We need to act fast, whatever we do.” She added with a note of worry.

The captain nodded in agreement, replying “Indeed we should. Call an emergency senior staff meeting in thirty minutes, we need everyone there.” Rainbow gave a confirming nod, and Twilight turned to Darkii Wings. “Would you mind making sure mister Radon there gets to his quarters?” she said, nodding towards Radon in the progress.

“Y-yes, Captain.” The Chiropteran replied, saluting weakly and walking over to Radon. Soon after, Twilight walked out of sickbay, marching towards the elevator to get to the staff meeting room at a steady pace.

Deck 1, Staff Meeting Room, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0200, Shipboard Time.

All of the senior staff had gathered in the meeting room, Twilight Sparkle at the head of the table and all the others in other seats in a random order. Everypony’s manes were looking rather messy and there was an air of fatigue throughout the room. At the command of Rainbow Dash, all of them had gathered everything they knew about the aliens and their vessel, from clues on how their bodies worked to the energy matrix of their engine core. Anything that could help then get an edge in this rather grim situation.

Clearing her throat to attract everypony’s attention, Twilight stood up and spoke. “Alright everypony. We need a plan to either escape as soon as we can or to find a way to disable the alien ship.” She paused for a moment to let the information she gave sink in before continuing. “Who has found anything?”

Rarity was the first to raise her hoof(in an utterly ladylike fashion, of course), followed by Fluttershy, whose hoof was barely raised half the height of Rarity’s. Pinkie Pie silently bounced in her seat, hoof high in the air and grinning widely.

Ignoring Pinkie for the time being, Twilight turned to the Chief of Operations. “What have you found out, Rarity?”

Rarity sat up slightly, clearing her throat before and shaking her mane out of her eyes while speaking. “Two things, Captain. Firstly, it may be possible to get through the alien ship’s shields with a shuttle.”

That immediately got Twilight and Rainbow’s attention. The latter asked “How do you think that’s possible? We shot at least three torpedoes at them and their shields didn’t even take a dent.”

“Quite simple, my dear. Our scans indicate that their vessel actually has easy-to-circumvent shields. Even though they may seem indestructible from our point of view, a ship like a shuttle should be able to pass through it by simply reversing the polarity of the neutron flow of the vessel’s engine.”

Rainbow blinked, more or less zoning out during Rarity’s explanation, and then replied “…then why can’t we use that technique for torpedoes?”

Sighing with a tinge of exasperation, Rarity continued. “Because these shields are set to deflect any energy that could damage the vessel. The energy would be deflected immediately, and besides that it doesn’t have a large enough engine to deliver the power required to reverse the polarity.”

“Never mind, that seems legit enough.” Dash said as she sat back, clearly not having understood much of the clarification. It sounded techy, and that was good enough for her.

The Captain looked at Rarity expectantly and with satisfaction. “Very good. And secondly?”

“I was just about to get to that.” Rarity said patiently. “While the aliens were aboard, I also picked up multiple very short transmissions going in and out of the ship. We can only assume it was them communicating with their leader outside.”

Twilight nodded, and after a second she replied. “Well, that might be useful later, but I don’t think it’s important for now.” She looked at Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, who still had their hooves up(and Pinkie Pie was still bouncing). Giving Pinkie a rather tired look, she said “Councillor… What have you found?”

Almost exploding at the chance to talk, Pinkie immediately bursted out in a cheerful babble. “They absolutely HATE high-pitched sounds! I set off a party cannon when they were being all mean around my quarters, and they ran away when it made its squeaky sound! I was all like ‘COME ON’, because who DOESN’T like party cannons?! You HAVE to be some boring meany-pants not to like parties!”

Fluttershy, who had let out a high-pitched “Eep!” and jumped under the table at Pinkie’s sudden explosion of words appeared from her hiding spot, trembling slightly. “…Uhm… That’s right, I found out that they are very sensitive to sound when scanning the alien we had captured before they.. well… got him back.”

“Mhm… That might be useful against them at some point. Have you found out anything else, Fluttershy?” Twilight replied with some interest.

Fluttershy shook her head quietly, sitting down again.

“Alright, I take that’s all everypony found out?” Twilight asked, and she was met with nods. “Okay… Applejack, if we would take a shuttle to board their ship, how long would it take to make the engine adjustments?”

“I dunno, reversing the polarity of the engines ain’t something you do every day, but I’d say around half an hour, give or take a few. “ Applejack replied, rubbing her chin with a hoof in thought while speaking. “But our engines will probably be back online in ‘round the same time, Cap’n. Might be smarter ta just leg it for now.”

“Agreed, that would be a much more favourable idea Captain. We need to return with more ships in order to stop the aliens from reaching Derppoint Colony.” Rarity added.

The captain thought for a minute, the entire crew waiting in silence. She was tempted to board the alien vessel and find out more about them, but it would be safer for everyone to retreat and wait for reinforcements. Eventually, she decided to take the safe route: This was no time for rash and reckless acts. “We’ll retreat and return with reinforcements. It’s too big of a risk to continue on our own.”

Everypony except for Rainbow Dash nodded in approval, and Twilight added “Applejack, get those engines back online and Spike, lay in a course to the nearest Federation outpost. Dismissed.”

The entire crew besides Twilight and Rainbow Dash stood up and trotted out, each at their own pace. When the doors had closed behind them, Rainbow spoke up. “Captain, are you sure about retreating? The aliens might do something that could give us an even bigger disadvantage, and we’d be missing out on a chance to hit them hard now!”

Twilight looked up at Dash, glaring. “Commander, in case you forgot, we have civilians on board and we are heavily damaged. I am not willing to put the lives of our entire crew at risk in order to gain an advantage that probably won’t make a difference anyhow and if you have a problem with that, you should transfer to a warship.” By the end of her final sentence, she was almost shouting at a scolding tone.

Surprised and taken aback by the Captain’s sudden outburst, Rainbow slowly stood up. “Alright, alright! I didn’t mean anything by it…” She shook her head as she walked out of the door, mood quite clearly deteriorated.

Twilight sighed tiredly, staring out one of the room’s large, panoramic windows in thought.

Chapter 5 - When Good Mares go to War

Note: This chapter is UNFINISHED. It will NEVER be finished; I just wanted to post what I had. Read why at the authors notes below. It hasn't been pre-read either; same reason with the answer on the same location.

Or will it be finished?... I kinda miss writing this story, I've gotta say... No, shouldn't go there.

Chapter 5 - When good mares go to war

Deck 1, Captain’s Office, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, 12 light years from Starbase 67,

Stardate 64429, 0700, Shipboard Time

Twilight sat in the chair behind her desk, staring at the glowing computer monitor in front of her as if she was terrified of it. She had just awoken from a rather delightful, but in her tastes too short nap in her quarters, and now the first task of the new day loomed to her: Recording the captain’s log.

She had completely forgotten about recording her thoughts in the ship’s log yesterday due to all of the excitement… She could hardly believe this. Never, EVER had she forgotten about something in her schedule. Then again, she’d never been a captain of a flagship before, and she CERTAINLY hadn’t experienced such a devastating attack like the one they had experienced. Looking around, she took note that her office was still messy; several PDA’s(which she had quite a lot of to keep track of her large amount of tasks and reports) had fallen from her desk and the two chairs which stood on the other side of the desk were standing around not at all in the straight and symmetric way she wanted them to.

Shaking her head to snap out of her thoughts about useless things, she realized she was procrastinating: She had always hated captains logs… They were worse than commanding the computer, as if she was talking to herself. Clearing her throat, she began to speak.

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 64429.

This morning at 0107 hours the Equestallation was attacked by an unknown alien vessel upon trying to hail them. The… The…”

“Computer, restart captain’s log…” She muttered in frustration, her voice suddenly rather venomous.

”Begin Captain’s Log of the P.S.S. Equestallation, Captain Twilight Sparkle. Stardate 64429.

Yesterday’s launch of the Equestallation was a success. All crew performed satisfactory and all systems operated without any trouble. However, over the course of our first mission we were attacked by an unidentified alien vessel. We took heavy damage and most of our systems were disabled in the attack. After fending off boarding parties, we managed to escape the area when our FTL drives came back online.”

A slight smile of satisfaction creeped onto Twilight’s face; This was going a lot better than she had expected. Then again, her expectations hadn’t been all that high.

”Scans done on the alien life forms can be found in our medical records in case the federation wants to investigate them further. As a captain, it is my duty to note that I believe this is essential to understanding and maybe finally coming to peace with the aliens for now dubbed ‘Unidentified Life-Form 451’. I must also note that the crew has unofficially been calling them the Griïnd. Apparently this is Chiropteran for Gravel, referring to their unique skins.”

For a few seconds she found herself at a loss for words, not being able to come up with anything else to say. What she had formulated so far had been good enough for a report to federation command, but she was forgetting something. A frown began to develop on her face as she considered summarizing everything from the launch of the ship to the present hour, but that wasn’t really necessary and it wasn’t was she wanted to add…

Suddenly her face lit up a bit as she found herself victorious over her thoughts, finally remembering the last thing to add.

”I must also note that my XO, Commander Rainbow Dash, has frequently belayed orders and has a tendency to speak her mind when she should not. If this continues, I shall bring this up at the first performance review.”

Deck 3, Quarters of Commander Rainbow Dash, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, 12 light years from Starbase 67,

Stardate 64429, 0800, Shipboard Time.

Commander Rainbow Dash uncomfortably tossed and turned on the soft mattress in her bunk. She had been excused from her duties on the bridge in order to get some much needed rest after being up for most of the night, and she had only gotten around an hour of sleep before waking up again.

It wasn’t that the bed was uncomfortable. Quite the contrary; she loved bunk beds. She could have gotten a much bigger and, in the eyes of many, more comfortable bed, but bunk beds were cool. No, it was more that This was going a lot better than she had expected. Then again, her expectations weren’t all that high she was completely occupied with thoughts about recent events. Of course the attack on the ship played a major role in these thoughts, but it didn’t bother her the most. She had been kept awake by the memory of the Captain’s outburst the previous night(or rather, earlier that morning). She hadn’t meant to aggravate the captain. She was only giving her a suggestion… Was that a bad thing? Wasn’t that her job?

She sighed dejectedly, burying her head in the soft pillows. True, she had thought that it would be a much better idea to attack the alien ship, but Twilight could have convinced her that the retreat was a better idea by just talking to her instead of scolding her.

Or had she, Rainbow Dash, been wrong for once? Had she gone too far? She’d seen the annoyed looks the Captain gave her when she commented on orders and gave her own suggestions when Twilight had clearly made her mind up about it already. Maybe the Captain was getting more and more frustrated with her behaviour? No, No way… She was Rainbow Dash! She was always right!

…Right?....

“Ugh!” the Commander exclaimed out loud, sounding annoyed as she gave up on the hope of getting some sleep with all these thoughts occupying her head. Without thinking, she jumped out of the comforts of her bed, slightly forgetting that she had been lying on a bunk. A rather high bunk.

There was a short, panicked yelp and a rather painful sounding sound, followed by “Ow! Darn it!”. She sat up a bit, rubbing a small, painful lump that had sprung into existence on top of her head. In some kind of miracle, she had landed head-first. She retracted her hoof for a moment, checking if there was any blood on it. When this was not the case, she let out a sigh of relief, glad that she at least wouldn’t have to get to report to sickbay. This relief was short lived, however, as she winced at a sudden surge of pain. Mumbling a few other curses, she stood up properly and stumbled into her quarters’ small bathroom. This was NOT a good morning for her.

Reaching her target(the sink), Dash looked at her tired and bedraggled looking reflection in the small mirror above it. Even though she was used to staying awake entire nights, she still had small bags under her eyes and her mane was literally standing in all directions. This little detail wasn’t too unique, though; her mane was always standing in every direction imaginable.

Her hooves automatically found their way to the tap, releasing a flow of cool, refreshing water from it. There was all this technology that made their lives better and easier, it even let them explore the galaxy, yet a tap was still a tap and water was still water. There was nothing like a good splash of cold water to the face to wake you up(besides maybe a dive in a cloud).

She was about to go ponder about her Twilight-related issues some more, but right now her brain wasn’t going to think deeply about anything. She was still tired, and right now there was only one way to fix that there was only one way to fix that little problem.

The ship’s coffee replicator pattern was about to get overloaded.

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, 9 light years from Starbase 67,

Stardate 64429, 0815, Shipboard Time.

Having just about finished all the work that needed to be done in her quarters, Twilight Sparkle came walking back onto the bridge from her office, more or less ready to start her day on the bridge. Everything was quiet as the ship was travelling at FTL-speeds on autopilot. There was an engineer in the corner silently repairing a conduit damaged in the attacks and Ensign Rarity was going about her business at the ops station. She certainly looked more refreshed than the yesterday, her mane being back in style again and her uniform neatly worn.

The only sounds that could be heard were the soft buzzing of a hyper spanner, humming of the engine, some computer beeps and… snoring?

The Captain was pretty sure none of the systems on the bridge could be responsible for any snoring noises. She looked over the bridge again... Rarity wasn’t asleep. Quite the contrary, actually; she was the most awake pony Twilight had seen all day. The engineer seemed to be perfectly normal as well, although a bit grimy. A next thought entered her head: Maybe Rainbow Dash was taking a nap under the-

At that moment, the real culprit caught her eye.

Apparently, Spike hadn’t left his post earlier and fallen asleep out of exhaustion. He laid over his navigation console, resting his cheek on it, his mouth wide open and his slightly pointy tongue hanging out of it. A small puddle of drool had gathered under the gaping hole of his mouth. Rarity didn’t seem to mind this scene of all, although it could be considered slightly disgusting. She still gave the young cadet an adoring glance every now again.

The Captain could hardly blame her for this though… The way he looked utterly at peace in such a strange environment and the way he was sleeping without a care in the world looked insanely adorable to her as well.

However, it was against regulation and Twilight, being the pony she was, immediately trotted up to the cadet, nudging his side, half amused and half annoyed.

“Mhmm-mwhaa-…?” the dragon groaned drowsily, opening his left eye and his surroundings slowly coming into focus for him. Suddenly, his eyes shot open completely as if he had received an electric shock. He both sat upright and cleaned the drool which was staining his cheek using is left claw in one fluid movement. A short, uncomfortable silence followed in which the dragon’s cheeks lit up, slowly changing from purple to red, and Twilight couldn’t help but smirk playfully. Her concern had faded away for a look of complete amusement, enjoying the very sudden change of wakefulness on the dragon’s end. After a while, Spike spoke warily. “Ah, uhm… Is there a problem, Captain?” He tried and failed an innocent smile, making an attempt to play it cool

Twilight’s smirk disappeared quickly and she spoke with feigned strictness, making a frown. “You should get some rest in your quarters, Cadet Spike.”

“I- I just… Uh… I…” Spike was having some trouble finding his words, his cheeks lighting up even more as he realized he was stuck in a corner and would have some trouble getting out of it by himself.

Luckily for him, Twilight just giggled lightheartedly(Rarity could be heard doing the same, albeit much more gracefully and ladylike, of course), smiling down upon him. She then spoke calmly, as if nothing embarrassing had happened at all.. “How far are we from Starbase sixty-seven, Cadet?”

“Oh… Uh…” Spike immediately perked up again, visibly calming down. He turned his chair to face his many terminals, checking out the numerous flashing counters before looking back up to Twilight. “9 light years, Captain. We’ll be there in about three hours at this speed.” He said, his voice sounding utterly grateful.

“Very well, thank you.” The Captain replied, voice still cheerful, turning her back in Spike, walking to her chair and sitting down on it. After a minute of just sitting, she took out a PDA with a mildly resentful sigh. Even though she had finished her log and quite a lot of paperwork in her office, there were always reports to take of as a Captain of a starship, especially of such a large one. It was one of the things that had always bugged her endlessly at the academy. Everypony there seemed to be ignorant of the fact that even if you had made it to the role of a Commanding Officer, you couldn’t sit around on your plot all day making others do work for you. Even though the Executive Officer, in this case Rainbow Dash, always took care of most of the paperwork submitted by different department heads which in turn got reports from crewmembers below them in the ship’s chain of command, she still had to check quite a lot of things. Then there were the classified files for Captain’s eyes only, and then finally you had random requests and the really little things that weren’t too important but still had to be seen to by her.

Exploring new worlds and having a say in where to go was still worth the hassle of paperwork, though. The feeling of landing on an uncharted world and really being the first to stand on new ground, breathing in the fresh air and seeing all the exotic landscapes… Such a sensation never gets old.

Twilight was gently snapped out of her reverie by Ensign Rarity, who coughed very softly and politely, clearly to get her attention. She put down the PDA again, glad to be able to put off the boring tasks for a little bit longer, and looked up at Rarity with a neutral expression. “Yes, Ensign?”

“Ahem, Captain, do you remember those transmissions, or rather scans, I mentioned yesterday during the meeting?” Rarity asked slowly, as if not completely certain what she was talking about herself yet.

Twilight turned her head in confusion, unsure where this was going, but nodded hesitantly. “Indeed I do… You said you suspected them to be communications of the alien ship right?”

Rarity nodded gladly, and continued with what she was about to say, still a bit of uncertainty in her voice. “Well, they actually have more of a scan-signature, but I had concluded they were meant for communication purposes. I am still not certain of what they are, but I do know that they came from two different sources and, well, they…” She paused for a second or so, as if to add a dramatic effect to her utterly scientific speech. “Didn’t stop…”

“…Huh…” Twilight said, then immediately kicking into overdrive research mode. “That would mean they are still scanning us! Maybe it is monitoring our systems to see if we are trying to take hostile action, or… They could be spying on the federation? What else do you know, Ensign?” she blurted out in an extremely fast and barely coherent way. If Rarity didn’t know better, she’d say the Captain had just been reduced to a filly just before the Federation Academy’s exams…

“Nothing, madam.” She said, still a bit flabbergasted by the captain’s sudden outburst.

“Well, get on it, Ensign! I want to find out what it is…”

Deck 2, Senior Officer’s Mess, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, 12 light years from Starbase 67,

Stardate 64429, 0800, Shipboard Time.

On most ships in use by the Equestrian Federation there was no mess hall reserved for senior officers; the greater part of the ships got a special lounge for that at most. Even if they did have a special mess hall, it wasn’t used all that often since the officers and usually even the Captain preferred to socialize with the rest of the crew. They were still built in ships for special occasions, however. Diplomatic dinners were a prime example of this on flagships; When ambassadors were invited to eat on the ship, peace and quiet was usually desired.

This morning was one of the special occasions on which most of the senior crew did actually eat in the officer’s mess, it being the first breakfast since the launch. One might find this a silly ritual, but on most ships it was a tradition, and a tradition that was not to be broken. This didn’t mean everypony ate at the same time, though. For example, the Captain had already eaten way before most of the others had even thought about getting up from their relatively short times of rest.

By the time Rainbow Dash entered, only a tired-looking Fluttershy and strangely awake Applejack were present in the roomy but strangely cosy dining room. Windows adorned one of the walls as with most rooms assigned to senior officers, giving a view of the aft of the ship and the bright vortex-like effect that accompanied their FTL engines.

“Lieutenant, Commander.” She grunted to Applejack and Fluttershy respectively, giving them polite but short nods on her way to the food replicator. She was still obviously quite tired and not all that cheerful.

“Uhm… Hello.” Was Fluttershy’s soft reply, and from Applejack came a way to cheerful “Well how are ya doin’ this mornin’, Commander?”

“Tired.” Came Dash’s grumpy reply, not at all feeling like making conversation without having some coffee first. How Applejack managed to be so… happy this early without getting much sleep was a mystery to her, and she was one of the most energetic ponies on the ship herself! When she arrived at the replicators she deadpanned “Coffee, black.” And then “And a waffles, hot.” added when she realized she was actually quite hungry as well.

She looked down onto the floor while the food and drink materialized molecule by molecule, giving off a faint purple light in the process. She never completely understood how this worked… Though it appeared to be food appearing out of thin air, there was a very long technical process behind it. To Rainbow Dash, it came down to three things: It was complicated, science-y and the result didn’t taste nearly as good as real food. Sure, it was passable, but nothing could beat the awesomeness of the taste of fresh waffles. Not even an exact molecular copy. Well, at least it wasn’t as bad as emergency rations… Those things were absolutely disgusting…She chuckled inwardly, imagining Rarity describing them. “A downright revolting insult to one’s taste buds!”

Shaking her head and smirking at the thought, she clumsily picked up her newly-appeared food and drink, using her mouth to take the drink while using a wing to support a plate. How earth ponies managed to get around, she didn’t know… Even with her wings to carry her plates, she always had a hard time keeping the balance.

After carefully putting her food and drink down upon the dining table next to Applejack, she pulled out a chair and let herself fall onto it. Her smirk had disappeared already, being replaced with a glum look, now directed at her coffee. Picking up said coffee, she sat back a bit, still not looking happy.

As Rainbow began carefully sipping her still very hot coffee, Applejack shot her a mildly concerned look. “Y’alright, sugarcube?” she asked, voice wary as if not wanting to tread onto dangerous grounds. Meanwhile, Fluttershy kept looking from Applejack to Rainbow and back, quietly monitoring their every move.

Looking at Applejack over her coffee, the Commander sighed. “I guess it’s just… Nah, nothing..”

“Gotta say, that doesn’t sound like nothin’, Rainbow.” The lieutenant said, giving the sky blue pegasus a contemplating look. “You should at least talk to the counselor if you don’t wanna talk about it to us.”

As if on cue, a pony-sized maintenance shaft access hatch disguised as a ceiling panel was thrown open from the inside, a pink pony – Pinkie Pie - falling out. She roughly tumbled onto the floor just half a meter next to Rainbow Dash. “Was somepony in need of counseling?” She chirped cheerfully, looking mostly at Dash, speaking as if she already knew the answer.

The commander stared at Pinkie speechlessly, her confusion being almost palpable. This scene didn’t change for a few seconds, no-one speaking, Pinkie staring at Dash inquisitively. Finally, the light cerulean pegasus grumbled a few incoherent words, ‘tired’ being the only recognizable one. Then, she spoke clearly. “…I guess?”

By some strange means of non-verbal communication, the counselor managed to make clear to Fluttershy and Applejack that they should leave. Or rather, she made some frantic ‘shoo’ motions towards them, giving the two officers looks that said she needed to speak to the commander in private.

Once the yellow-shaded ponies had left, Pinkie Pie turned her attention back to the now uncertain looking Rainbow Dash. She pulled glasses out of nowhere and put them on, making giving her a ‘grandmother’ look. Or at least, she thought it gave her a grandmother look. Everypony else thought it looked ridiculous. She paid this no mind however and gave the cerulean pegasus a compassionate look. “Okeydokey, why don’t you tell auntie Pinkie Pie what’s wrong, Dashie?” she chirped.

The look of uncertainty on the Commander’s face changed into a look of sincere trouble, a frown dominating the mare’s features. Certainly not without some amount of hesitation, Rainbow Dash spoke. “Well, I-…” She cut herself off abruptly, attempting to find the words she wanted to use. After a sort pause, she continued. “I’ve been having a bit of an argument with the Captain. That’s all, really...”

“…aaand?” the bright pink earth pony asked inquisitively, staring into Dash’s eyes(or from Rainbow’s perspective, her very soul). She knew this wasn’t the whole truth.

Beads of sweat forming on her forehead, Rainbow tried to talk herself out of it, stammering “N-nothing!”, most of the usual layers of bravado gone. The distressed pegasus absolutely hated being in tight spots like this: She wasn’t one to trust her personal problems to others. If she weren’t more or less pushed into this conversation against her will, she never would have talked to a counselor.

As expected, Pinkie didn’t exactly buy this, frowning down upon the sky-blue mare. With a frown like this, the glasses did have the desired effect, making Rainbow feel like she was a foal being scolded by its parent.

Chapter 2 - Encounter at Derppoint

Chapter 2 - Encounter at Derppoint

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

0,2 Light years from Wheat Space Nine,

Stardate 64428, 1700 Hours, Shipboard Time.

The Equestallation was nearing Wheat Space Ten rapidly. Even though the station was quite a long distance away from Equestria, a stable wormhole had been found that allowed for rapid transit between the two locations. The station was 400 light years away, a distance that would usually take twenty-four hours on the Equestallation’s top speed, but the wormhole cut it down to a five hour trip.

As they were beginning to get closer and closer to the station, Twilight commanded Spike “Cadet, drop us out of jump space.”.

“Yes captain, dropping out.” Spike replied as he was preparing the ship to slow down. “FTL speed cut, and we’re back to normal space.” He then said while there was a decrease in noise from the engines.

“Well done.” Twilight complimented, still impressed by the young dragon’s flight experience. ‘How can such a small creature control such a large ship?’ She thought. For a moment she considered asking that to Rainbow who was sitting next to her, but before she could do that Spike spoke again.

“We are approaching Wheat Space Ten, Captain.” He said, and indeed, the space station was slowly coming up on the Bridge’s main viewscreen.

It was a very large station, around 25 Kilometres in diameter, yet it was also very streamlined. Multiple docking ports and other modules stuck out of the large main body, yet it didn’t look like a mess.

“Ensign Rarity, hail the station.” Twilight said in the direction of Rarity.

The white unicorn replied “Most certainly, Captain.”, and she pressed multiple buttons at her terminal. Soon after, the face of a dark blue earth pony in a red-edged uniform appeared on the main screen.

“I am Commander Frisko of Wheat Space Ten.” The blue pony said as an introduction with a seemingly bored look, and before Twilight could reply, he asked “Can I be of assistance?”

Twilight answered “I am Captain Twilight Sparkle, commanding officer of the Equestallation. I was supposed to get my new assignment here?”

Commander Frisko immediately brightened up, happy with some news. “So, the Equestallation was launched? It’s an honour to see her in action.” He said, and continued “Yes, we have orders for you, captain. I’ll have the complete file sent over to you immediately, but I’ll give you a short summary. Long range sensors at the Derppoint Colony have detected an unidentified vessel headed towards them. We don’t know its origin or its intentions, so we are sending you to investigate the situation, and hopefully make first contact with the species piloting the ship.”

Twilight took a moment to process all the information. First contact with a new species? On their first assignment? “Understood. Is there anything else known about the ship other than it’s headed for the colony?” She then replied.

“Not much, but the sensor logs will be in the file, it’s being sent to you now.” Frisko said.

Rarity confirmed “We are indeed receiving the file, captain.”.

“We haven’t been able to get the exact location of the ship as we didn’t have enough time to properly analyse the data, but I trust you will be able to do just that. Now I should get back to my normal duties. Good luck, captain.” Frisko stated with a sigh, and he ended the transmission.

Twilight, who had nodded when Frisko had wished them luck, went over the situation for a moment. They were being sent to intercept a new alien race, which was exciting, but it was unclear if the aliens mean harm or not. Finally, after thinking a moment, she started giving commands.

“Cadet Spike, set a course for Derppoint Colony at FTL speeds. Engineering, prepare the engine for FTL drive.”

“Okay Captain, setting course.” Spike confirmed, and there was a similar confirmation coming from Engineering over the comm system.

After Applejack and Spike had confirmed their orders, Twilight turned towards Rarity. "Ensign, I would like you to look over the sensor logs for any insight on the aliens’ current position. Have me notified if you find anything, and make sure that our course is corrected immediately.”

“Oh, right away, Madam.” Rarity replied with a small nod, and she left the bridge for her office down at the Ops control centre.

“I’ll be in my office. You have the bridge, commander.” Twilight lastly said half to herself and half to Rainbow Dash, while getting up and trotting towards her office’s doors.

Deck 15, Ops Control Room, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, approx. 19 light years from Derppoint Colony,

Stardate 64429, 2354 Hour, Shipboard Time.

Once she was commanded to do so, Ensign Rarity had immediately begun studying the sensor logs they received from Wheat Space Ten. The logs were a complete mess: Between the actually useful information there were lunabytes worth of data that were nothing more than the temperature of stars and the amount of space dust per cubic metre. Therefore it had taken quite some time to actually FIND any useful information, but she had finally found the data she needed.

She had found the exact location and heading of the alien ship when the last scans were taken; about nine hours ago. Just when she was about to call her findings in, the doors of Ops Control opened, and Rainbow Dash entered.

“Ensign, did you find anything yet?” Rainbow asked eagerly as she entered the room. She hadn’t been in here yet. It was mostly a room filled with computers and monitoring equipment. She saw a door at the back of room that she thought to be connected to the hall where the main computer core should be. Before she could draw any more conclusions, Rarity interrupted her.

"Ah, perfect timing, Commander! I was just about to contact you, you see. Yes, I have found the alien ship's exact location.", Rarity answered with a content smile. "Come here for a moment and I will show you." She then said, gesturing towards the station she was working at.

Rainbow slowly trotted over. Sure, she knew a thing or two about computers, but she hoped Rarity would keep the science-stuff to a minimum. She was a commander, not a rocket scientist. “Alright, what have you got?”

“Right here we have the ship’s current location, and here it’s heading.” Rarity explained whilst pointing a hoof first at the coordinates, and then the heading. "I'd say if we alter our course now, we should be there in, oh, around an hour."

“Awesome!” Rainbow replied cheerfully, and added “I’ll tell cadet Spike immediately. See ya later, Ensign!”

“Very well. Goodbye, Commander!” Rarity replied as Rainbow turned and left ops.

Deck 1, Captain’s Office, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, approx. 16 light years from Derppoint Colony,

Stardate 64429, 0023 Hours, Shipboard Time.

Captain Sparkle shot up from her desk due to a sudden noise. She had fallen asleep on it whilst studying the sensor logs sent to the ship. It wasn’t that the logs weren’t interesting, it was just that it had been a long day with the launch of the ship and immediate deployment on a mission.

The sudden noise turned out to be the doors of her office opening, and as she looked she saw that a cyan Pegasus had walked in(who she recognised as Rainbow Dash). Just when she wanted to say something, Twilight was interrupted by a sudden burst of laughter.

“Bwahaha!” Rainbow laughed, pointing at Twilight. “You… you fell asleep at your desk… at your first day of work?! You’re an awesome role model, captain!”

Twilight gave the rainbow-maned pegasus an annoyed look, and she remarked “Yes, but you might be living up to me a bit too much. I heard you napped on top of an engine core once and would have gotten radiation poisoning if the chief engineer hadn’t woken you up.”

Rainbow suddenly stopped laughing, put off by her captain’s knowledge of that little 'incident'. “Ahem, Ensign Rarity has notified me that she researched all the sensor logs and given a new course to Cadet Spike.”

Pleased with the result of her little comment on Dash’s own habits, Twilight smiled and answered “Good. Where are we headed now, then?”

“Well, not really to a system. The alien ship is about two light years away from Raxacoricoponypatorius’s current location., and it’s still headed towards Derppoint Colony. We are on an intercept course, and should meet it within an hour.” Rainbow replied, saying Raxacoricoponypatorius without a hitch. At first she would always laugh at the rogue planet’s strange name, but she had gotten used to it.

“Alright, I’ll probably be on the bridge in half an hour. You’re dismissed.” Twilight said, ending the conversation.

Rainbow stood for a moment, until she realised that with dismissed Twilight meant ‘Get outta my office.’. After that realisation, she saluted, and left the office.

Deck 4, Mess Hall, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, approx. 17 light years from Derppoint Colony,

Stardate 64429, 0045 Hours, Shipboard Time.

Lieutenant Applejack entered the Mess Hall for a snack in the middle of the night. Even though the ship used shifts, and there were always other ponies awake, the mess was usually empty at night. The lights were even dimmed. “Night is somethin’ that‘ll never change, I s’pose” She thought to herself.

Thinking she was alone, she trotted over to the food dispensers which were part of the right wall to get a drink. She was about to order something when she noticed a black figure sitting in a corner of the room. The figure had wings, and was staring into the void of space through one of the many windows in the room, but AJ couldn’t see who it was due to the darkness in the room.

“’ello?” Applejack said cautiously, not sure if the figure wanted to be disturbed or not.

Upon the sound, the figure shrunk and made a startled squeaking noise, as it directed its view towards Applejack. Even in the dark, it was clear that it had had light blue eyes, and judging by the figure’s light build, AJ could assume that it was a pegasus mare. Yet something seemed off – the wings, folded to the mare’s side were strangely pointy, not normal for Pegasi.

Curiosity finally got the better of Applejack, and she said “Computer, lights”.

As the lights changed from their dimmed state to full-on bright, a dark-blue chiropteran with a black mane with a bit of purple in it was revealed. She was wearing a uniform with a yellow edge, indicating that she worked in the security department. AJ recognised her as Darkii Wings, the only chiropteran that worked on the ship.

When the lights were completely turned on, Darkii shot under her table, scared by the sudden light.

.Applejack immediately apologised upon seeing the Chiropteran’s scared reaction to herself and the light. “Oh, I’m mighty sorry to have startled ya. I just wanted to see who you were. I’m not used to people bein’ in the mess at this time, ya see.”

Darkii slowly crawled from under her table, back into the light. “Oh, no, it’s not a problem. I just uh, react sensitively to sudden light, you see.” She said, nervously scratching the floor with one of her hooves. She obviously didn’t like the current situation: She wasn’t exactly comfortable with her natural Chiropteran instincts while there were Equestrian ponies around.

“Alright then, shouldn’t have turned on the lights anyway. But why were you squeakin’ and not replyin’ when I greeted you, then?” Applejack inquired, not really thinking about the fact that what she just asked was a bit rude.

“I’m also… not… really used to ponies talking to… me…” Darkii shyly replied, still scratching the floor with her hooves. She resisted the urge to just run away and escape this situation, but gladly, that wasn’t necessary as Applejack responded in an understanding manner.

“Oh, well I can understand that. You Chiropterans don’t know us pony folk for very long yet, I s’pose, and I’d be wary too if I were standin’ in your hooves.” The orange earth pony answered kindly, smiling at the bat-like security officer. “If ya ever need help or anythin’, just say so. But now I should really get a drink and go to my quarters, I’d like to get some sleep before we intercept the alien shi-“

They were rudely interrupted by the voice of Rainbow Dash over the intercom. “All senior staff, report to your stations and open a communications link with the bridge if you’re not already there. All junior staff, be on alert.”

“Well, I suppose I won’t be gettin’ any sleep…” Applejack said, annoyed by the sudden interruption. “I’ll see you later.”

Darkii Wings just nodded as the earth pony left, and she commanded “Computer, dim lights.”, glad that ponies, or at least this one, accepted her as an equal.

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation,

Deep Space, nearing the unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0104 Hours, Shipboard Time.

Twilight had returned to the bridge just after Rainbow Dash had announced that all senior staff should report at their stations. As she entered, she said “I take it we are nearing the alien ship?”

“Yes ma’am.” came as a reply from Spike up at navigation. “We are nearing the ship and have dropped out of FTL speed.”

“Very well. Do we have a visual?” Twilight asked Rarity.

“Why indeed we have, Captain. Putting it on the main screen.” Rarity replied, clearly a bit worn down after going through all the sensor logs to find the location of the ship. She pressed a few buttons, after which the alien ship appeared on the main screen.

It was massive. Even the Equestallation didn’t measure up to the size of the ship in front of them. It was at least 10000 metres long, 4000 wide and 4000 high. It was generally shaped as a cylinder, but had a lot of bits sticking out of it, as if they were tacked on later. Multiple what could only be presumed as cargo bay or hangar doors could be seen all over the ship, as well as what were clearly cannons of sorts.

Twilight her mouth fell open, flabbergasted by the size of the dreadnaught that was flying in front of them. She asked “What is its current heading?”

“It is still going straight for Derppoint Colony, madam. For some reason at sub-FTL speed.” Rarity answered, her mouth wide open, also amazed by the size of the vessel.

“Well then, open communication frequencies, hail them.” Twilight commanded, beginning to doubt the aliens intentions. Judging by the vessel’s cannons, it would seem that the aliens on the ship didn’t have good intentions.

“Hailing frequencies opened.” Rarity said after the pressing of yet another couple of buttons. Ten seconds passed, and she added “No response.”

“Hail them again.” Twilight answered. She got the same reply from Rarity as before.

Twilight sighed, and said “Keep hailing them, maybe they will respond.”

Rarity agreed, and shortly after, Rainbow Dash spoke.

“Captain, maybe we should move ourselves between the ship and Derppoint, in case they don’t even know we are here.” She suggested. As first officer it was her duty to give strategies and ideas, no matter how stupid the ideas might be. This one especially was a bit irrational, but it could indeed get the attention of the ship in front of them.

“That might actually be a good idea…” Twilight answered, quickly thinking over the strategy. After a moment, she decided: “Cadet Spike, bring us in front of the alien ship. Lieutenant Rarity, make sure that the ship remains in the centre of the view screen.”

She got a “Yes madam” and “Aye captain.” from Rarity and Spike respectively, as they began carrying out their orders.

As Spike slowly brought the Equestallation in front of the alien ship, the view on the main screen shifted as the aforementioned alien ship remained in the centre. When they were in position, they could see the ship’s front clearly. It was quite an intimidating sight: There was a large amount of cannons, and they could see what was supposedly a command centre near the middle of the cone that was the front of the ship.

Before anyone could say anything, Rarity got an alarm on one her consoles. “Ah, smashing. I believe that got their attention, madam. I am detecting an energy surge in the vessel, presumably a communication device powering up.”

There was a flash on the upper right corner of the viewscreen. Once the flash subdued, there was a little ball of light, becoming larger and larger as it quickly neared the Equestallation. It was clear this ball had originated from one of the cannons on the alien ship, but no-one had time to say anything, or hardly to process all the information.

A second passed, and the ball passed the aft camera on the right side. There was a loud bang, and the entire ship shook.